Stars You’d Like to Meet . . . On THIS Side

On Friday we will be running a gallery made up largely of reader answers to the question, “What star would you like to meet . . . on the Other Side?” It was a question that allowed for a lot of imaginative arranging of circumstances.

Now for that question’s more prosaic twin: What famous person would you like to meet . . . on THIS side?

And to be specific, the person you would be meeting, you would be meeting NOW. As you. So this is not like you are Brad Pitt and you want to meet Angelina Jolie. This is YOU meeting Angelina Jolie, in circumstances in which it would be possible for you to actually be meeting Angelina Jolie.

Is there anyone you’d like to meet?

Honestly, I can’t think of anybody offhand. Just about all the celebrities I wanted to meet, I met for my book about French actresses. I didn’t get to meet Cotillard, Binoche and Beart, but now that the book is out, I have no great need to meet any of them.

I guess I’d be curious to meet Paul McCartney, having invested so much psychic energy thinking of the guy all these years. And yet I’ve seen him interviewed too many times to think meeting him would be anything special.

A few years ago, Al Gore was in town, and I wanted to meet HIM, but mainly because I thought he was going to get elected president in 2008. You know, as in elected and then actually getting to BE president. But it didn’t happen, and the desire went with it.

Anyway, so: Who, of celebrities currently living, would you most like to meet? And, if you want to say why, why would you like to meet them?